"Not all zone 5's are equal. My zone 5, Phyllostachys genus is the best." I have to agree with you. The clumping does grow slow in colder zones, but the running tends to grow too fast in warmer zones. If you had to remove it, would it be hard to do? We have phragmites here that are a pain and have killed off most of the cat tails. I just want a small ornamental bush, and the clumping types are cool. Beautiful looking too. The one I have has gorgeous orange culms. One that looks great is black cherry. I agree about the statement about zones. My zone 6 is cold, compared to zone 6 in TN! We get a lot less rain too. We had 13 days below zero this winter. With -14 being the coldest. 4 days were double digit below zero. That will never happen in TN or MO, which both have zone 6 areas too. So we got zone 5 cold, at times. If you look at SE MI, it is a zone 6 surrounded by zone 5. The Great Lakes keep us slightly warmer...sometimes! How many zone 6's have a zone 5 south of them? We do! Phyllostachys would grow well here, but I'm not willing to put up barriers to contain it, and I would have to do that. My wife was mad at me for buying bamboo, then she saw the 'Scabrida' and fell in love with it. She told me she had no idea it was so beautiful. Here is a link that might be useful: Black Cherry This post was edited by Drew51 on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 1:57

Hey! Am having good results here in zone 5 w/ Fargesia murielae (clumper) and am putting in a Phyllostachys nuda (runner) this weekend. Both chosen for ultra cold hardiness ( -17F here last winter). The fargesias did great. I get everything via internet (I like BambooHeadquarters) and UPS

I didn't know there were bamboos hardy to our area other than a few Phyllostachys and Fargesias. In shade, my F. robusta and F. nitida have never gotten much more than 6' tall, and I'm at the lake with that extra warmth in the winter. P. aurea and P. nuda both get taller, but not quite much more than 6-7'. OTOH, I do have the Phyllostachys in small root barriers, which could hinder overall growth and affect height. They spread like crazy, so be careful. I've seen one stand, I'm sure planted by an unknown gardener, take up easily a space 15' x 15'.

My list is similar to Woodyoak's: Honeysuckle - look for varieties of Lonicera sempervirens, a native red-flowered honeysuckle (though also a few yellow or orange types), that grows well around here and attracts hummingbirds. Try to get a variety that says it is mildew resistant if that is likely to be a problem for you. Mine isn't a named variety, but I have never had mildew problems. Clematis - My favorites! I especially like the summer flowering, hard prune varieties or the really early flowering atragenes (no pruning) as they aren't likely to wilt and bloom at times other than my main flushes of perennials. Hydrangea anomala subspecies petiolaris and Schizophragma hydrangoides are both shade-loving extremely large vines with hydrangea-type flowers. I have a plain green Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris growing up a large retaining wall, but it also grows well up tree trunks. There are also some varieties with variegation on the leaves, like Moonlight and Miranda, but regardless, be sure you have room for this one if you are going to plant it. I do have some of the hardier climbing roses, but for me they have to be single early bloomers or they need attention to removing Japanese beetles daily. I am currently trying a hardy kiwi for the first time. One of my across-town neighbors grows it, so I am hoping that our conditions are similar enough that I can be successful. The fruit of hers is delicious. I honestly wouldn't call it a beautiful vine, however! If I were going to plant wisteria, I would be more likely to use the American wisteria as it isn't so rampant and invasive, though it still is a large vine needing attention to pruning. Both the Chinese and Japanese tend to seed around and need much management as far as pruning, way more than I have time for. There are horror stories out there of sprouts from roots meters away from the original plant. In all honesty, there are a couple of annual vines I really like as well: Sweet peas (for sentimental reasons since my grandmother grew them) have lovely scented flowers. I would NOT recommend perennial sweet peas - no scent and they seed around horribly. Scarlet runner beans have bright red flowers that attract hummingbirds, and as a bonus have edible beans, either very young as green beans or dried beans with a lovely purple mottled color. I also like black-eyed Susan vine, Thunbergia alata, with its cheerful yellow or orange (or more rarely white or pink) flowers with dark eyes.